Anothe great video lecture from the National Honey Show, this time it's 'The Biology of Mating' by Juliana Rangel.
https://youtu.be/tLHcle6CKcg
Anothe great video lecture from the National Honey Show, this time it's 'The Biology of Mating' by Juliana Rangel.
https://youtu.be/tLHcle6CKcg
A good reference which touches on many points which are regularly discussed on this forum.
Yes, a nice presentation. One topic we've discussed which she touched on was the conditions for mating flights. I was a little surprised to see her view on the environmental conditions for mating flights:
- temp >75F (ie 23.9C)
- sunny or partially blue sky
- little wind (<10mph)
Maybe these American bees are spoiled.
I wonder whether the screen shot should actually have said 65f rather than 75?
edit: This paper discusses temperature too:
Observation of the Mating Behavior of Honey Bee (Apis mellifera L.) Queens Using Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID): Factors Influencing the Duration and Frequency of Nuptial Flights
http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/5/3/513/pdf
Last edited by prakel; 22-11-2015 at 09:39 AM.
Hi Jon
There are enough good features of well bred Amm to make them attractive without the more dubious claims
Some strains will be way better than others and that's the case for all the types of honey bee
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Hi Gavin
This study of mating seems to be saying there are plenty drones everywhere even in low density areas
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4361586/
Lots of mating with different drones
If queens somehow mate with drones not from their own apiary that mechanism doesn't seem well understood
So if you bought in 10 queens from different sources and they were in the same apiary then they are unrelated in pheromones or whatever
However if its a distance method of differentiation all your drones will still be flying in different locations from your virgin queens
I am not clear on which might be the best method but it would seem to be have all the local beekeepers with one bee type AND for all those beekeepers to have unrelated strains
Open mating favour hybridisation that's why almost every bee we have is a hybrid
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Don't forget that study which suggested that there may be a mechanism which favours within subspecies crossing
Partial reproductive isolation between European subspecies of honey bees
Andrzej Oleksa, Jerzy Wilde, Adam Tofilski, Igor J. Chybicki
Northern Poland is inhabited by native Apis mellifera mellifera (AMM) and the non-native A. m. carnica (AMC) which was introduced by beekeepers. However, hybrids between the two subspecies of honey bee are relatively rare.
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